<p>Nastia was amazing. Her father was so funny, too (he'd randomly come up to the bar and stare, but I think it was to catch her if she fell). Yay for Russian-Americans!</p>
<p>nastia is hot.</p>
<p>We Russians generally are.</p>
<p>...totally joking. But maybe not.</p>
<p>wait i thought you were japanese</p>
<p>Can we just enjoy the games? I just finished watching badminton (live video on the NBC website). It's definitely one of the most entertaining sports (especially the doubles) to watch. :)</p>
<p>Catsushi- all (uneven bars) coaches do that on bars whenever the gymnast has a release/ a dismount. It's not necessarily to catch her if she falls (well it is, but that's not always possible), but to break a fall to hopefully avoid a (major) injury.
Her dad just happens to be her coach.</p>
<p>Apparently, the "terrible" air didn't stopped many 10,000-meter run athletes from achieving their personal best. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I'm really glad Nastia got the gold in the AA. I got my picture taken with her parents a couple years ago, haha (the line was ridiculously long to get her autograph). </p>
<p>But still, Alicia's been my favorite gymnast for a few years now, so I'm sticking with her. Hopefully she can get gold in the VT final.</p>
<p>Just came back from the olympics. I went to 3 basketball games and 2 soccer games. Couldn't get tickets for the opening ceremony, but my dad said he paid for them over a year ago. I also meet people who paid for them 4 years ago and still couldn't get tickets. Oh well, after watching it at the swiss embassy and realizing it was just 3 hours of people walking around in a circle I don't feel I missed much. </p>
<p>School starts in less than 2 weeks!</p>
<p>hey broken_symlink,</p>
<p>i've been wondering why people have been having difficult time to get tickets but almost all venues weren't full, at least for the ones that've been shown on TV. looks like there's been some sort of mismanagement.</p>
<p>I don't know what to say. Tickets aren't impossible to get, but its not raining tickets in Beijing either. Ticket scalping is illegal in China, so its not possible to get them on the street. But if you just go to the stadiums, they have ticket offices selling tickets. I think the government is responsible for distributing tickets, and that they probably haven't done as good a job as they could have, especially for the opening ceremony. I got my tickets at the Swiss embassy, and at the stadiums themselves. The Swiss embassy had a bunch of tickets for sale and they were very cheap. The seats weren't bad either. </p>
<p>As far as the venues appearing empty. The majority of spectators at the olympics are Chinese, and its not uncommon for hundreds or even thousands of Chinese to just leave during the middle of an event. Most of them probably have to go to work the next days, and the events can run a little late. I think the majority of the events start at 5 in the afternoon and can end up running until about 11 or 12. However, from what I saw, any event with an Asian country competing you can expect the stadium to be packed. I went to a men's soccer game, and I think South Korea and Honduras were playing. I have never seen so many people in my life. But then, the next game which was like half an hour after, the stadium was deserted. It was New Zealand vs. Belgium. For basketball and soccer, the tickets are usually good for 2 games, so people come and go. </p>
<p>Opening ceremony tickets were impossible to get. The government didn't allow them to be released to spectators until the day before the ceremony, but I don't think people got them until the day of. They also required you to submit a copy of your passport and a picture to be printed on the ticket, but the thing is, ticket companies were allowed to make changes to the name on the ticket up to a month before the Olympics. So, what I think happened to a majority of the people that paid for opening ceremony tickets 4 years ago is this, ticket companies originally sold tickets for about $2000 ea. Then, once the olympics started drawing closer and closer, and more people wanted tickets, they started reselling those tickets for crazy amounts of money, like $6000 ea. They made the change to the tickets and gave them to the people that paid the most, then they told the people they originally sold the ticket to that they didn't have any. So, I think many people were cheated out of tickets for the opening ceremony.</p>
<p>All in all going to the Olympics was amazing, and just being in Beijing the days leading up to the Olympics were some of the most memorable days of my life, which I won't soon forget. The only thing I wish I would have done was watched the opening ceremony in Tiananmen Square, instead of going to the art factory.</p>
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wait i thought you were japanese
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<p>Nooope Russian-American. Born in the Soviet Union, oh baby!!</p>
<p>I missed track, can anybody give me a wonderful little summary of what happened?</p>
<p>they're replaying it right now.</p>
<p>^^Not for me. It's gymnastics now, I'm watching Nastia.</p>
<p>I'm surprised that no Chinese gymnasts ended up in the finals of the individual gymnastic event (or that I can see, maybe I'm wrong?). Why is that? They did really well as a team, but why not individually?</p>
<p>Oh my, what a finish for Phelps tonight. I stayed up to watch the end of the gymnastics final--great job by Liukin and Johnson.</p>
<p>Finally, TRACK has started!</p>
<p>Argh, I'm still on men's vollyball but my friend from the East Coast told me all about the epic race. D: And maybe I was wrong and a Chinese gymnast got third? They only showed half her face (she was standing next to Nastia and Shawn perhaps?).</p>
<p>Yeah, there were two Chinese gymnasts in the finals of the all around. One fell, badly, on her vault and therefore wasn't much of a contender; the other got the bronze after giving Shawn Johnson quite a run for the silver.</p>
<p>Also: WOW to Phelp's most recent race. Olympic history right there, folks. People will be talking about that race for years.</p>
<p>So the Serbians are protesting that Michael Phelps won?</p>
<p>I have to say that Michael Phelps did a marvelous finish, and the second place made the mistake of gliding into the wall. Amazing, I agree!</p>
<p>The Serbians protested, the officials showed them the replay slowed down to something like ten-thousandths of a second (plus I believe there are electronic sensors). They "accept" the ruling, but still feel they won the race.</p>
<p>I went to the Track and Field event yesterday (where the men's shot put and women's 10000 m were decided). Pretty awesome.</p>
<p>Random? =p</p>